


Pushed Out of the Nest

by crossingwinter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Porg Parenting, Reylo Baby, porgs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22411174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: Rey and Ben disappear for a few days and return with a useless, crying, chubby small human who takes all their attention and energy.Their pet porg, Bird, is not amused.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey
Comments: 161
Kudos: 746
Collections: Reylo Charity Anthology: Volume 2





	Pushed Out of the Nest

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This fic was written for the Reylo Charity Anthology's second volume! Hope you enjoy it <3
> 
> It has also been translated [into Russian](ficbook.net/readfic/9617547) if that's your jam!

They just left me.

Just left me. 

One second we were sitting on the couch, I was sitting in Dad’s lap because Mom’s gotten so round. And then they’re both getting up and hurrying out and they don’t even say goodbye.

It’s not  _ abnormal _ for them to leave me alone. That happens. But they don’t usually rush out and they do usually make sure that the food bowl is full before they go. Or they bring me to the  _ Falcon _ and the colony where I will have company. But they rarely just leave me.

I am annoyed.

And more than a little betrayed. 

I squawk as plaintively as I can. Somewhere else in the apartment, I hear the Rolling One beep back. They tend not to leave the Rolling One behind when they go on longer trips, so I am mildly mollified. The Rolling One also knows how to feed me. Indeed, my squawking leads the Rolling One to feed me. And change my water. I squawk some more. The Rolling One beeps at me, but I cannot understand it. I can sometimes understand Mom and Dad when they make their human noises at me, but they are more effective at getting their point across than the Rolling One. I think because they have their featherless wings. 

I wait.

I wait two whole days but there is no sign of Mom or Dad. 

I sleep in the nest they made for me in the room down the hall from their bedroom. It’s walls are freshly decorated and there’s a device with dangling stars over the nest. The nest is perfectly porg sized. I thought they loved me. I thought they cared about me. It makes me sad to sleep in the nest now that they just left, but I don’t want to go sleep in their bed while they’re gone. That will only make me feel worse.

I poop on the floor of the fresher in protest, something that always annoys Dad. I don’t usually do it on purpose. It’s usually an accident because sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. But since they have abandoned me without warning, and keep not coming back—now it’s on purpose. I also knock over Mom’s toolbox and drag her toys around the apartment so that they’re sitting right by the door so she will know my displeasure. 

Porgs have power. Just because they are bigger and stronger than me doesn’t mean this isn’t also my home, and doesn’t mean they can just do whatever they want to me. They keep pretending to care about me. They pet me, and feed me, and take me out for short flights, and give me things to hop around on and climb, and bring home torn up fabrics for me to re-nest with. And abandon me at the drop of a hat.

Yeah, I’m gonna poop in the fresher.

\---

It is three days before they come back.

I squawk when I hear them on the other side of the door. 

“You have his head?” Mom asks.

“I have his head,” Dad replies. They’re both speaking so softly, so gently. 

I squawk again.

“It’s ok, Bird,” Mom calls. “We’re home. We’re home and you have a brother.”

“He doesn’t have a brother,” Dad grumbles.

“Hush. He’s our first child.”

“He’s a porg.” The door opens and there they are and Dad takes a step forward before freezing and frowning. There is something in his arms. “Someone wasn’t excited we just left him,” he says. 

“Careful,” Mom says looking around.

“Could you—”

“Oh, right.” And she holds out her hand and does that  _ thing _ she does where she just makes things move and suddenly the toys that I had so carefully strewn throughout the entryway are floating in the air and dropping inelegantly into a pile by the door. 

Dad shuffles through the entryway. He doesn’t take off his coat, doesn’t take off his boots, even though he usually does both of those things when he comes home. He goes into the room they’ve been re-nesting, the one they put my nest in, and I hop after him, curious. He doesn’t usually go in there when he gets home. He goes to the fresher to wash his hands. I want him to go to the fresher. I want him to see the signs of my displeasure. 

Mom follows him and a moment later they are both standing next to the box of soft things and Dad is putting something in it. Something that’s wrapped in a blanket, and has a hat. It makes a noise I recognize—a  _ wait no you’re moving me _ noise. I spy a pink wing flapping in the air and Mom reaches out to tuck it under the blanket.

That’s when I remember that Mom was round when she left and she is not nearly as round now.

“Welcome home, Bail,” she whispers, leaning forward to press a kiss to the thing. Dad is now taking off his coat, toeing off his boots. Then he wraps an arm around Mom’s shoulder and presses a kiss to the side of her head. 

\---

I do not like it.

Bail.

Bail is a small human. I think. It’s much scrunchier in its face than Mom and Dad are. Mom and Dad walk around. They talk. They use the fresher. They pet me. 

Bail wails.

And poops.

And hiccups.

And they  _ always _ do what it wants. Which just isn’t fair. I have been here longer, but they don’t do what I want whenever I squawk. They tell me to be quiet. (Dad was very annoyed about the pooping in the fresher, so at least I have some power.) But every time Bail starts wailing—

“Is that his hungry cry?” Dad asks as Mom groans and sits up. Bail wails a lot and Mom and Dad haven’t been getting a lot of sleep.  _ I  _ haven’t been getting a lot of sleep either, but I sleep less than they do to begin with. I think it’s because they are so big and I am so small. But Bail is the same size as me and he sleeps erratically. I think they should return him. He is clearly defective. I have told this to the Rolling One but the Rolling One disagrees. The Rolling One doesn’t need to sleep.

“Isn’t it always his hungry cry?” she groans as she stumbles out of the bedroom and down the hall to Bail’s nest. I hop after her. She sounds annoyed. Maybe if she gets so annoyed at it, she will get rid of him. 

“Hey, sweet boy,” Mom says as she eases Bail out of  _ my _ nest and into her arms. His face is scrunchier and redder than usual, and he is waving his fat wings in the air. Mom tugs her shirt down over her chest and presses Bail’s mouth against it. Bail stops crying.

I hear Dad coming up behind me. He has very heavy footsteps because he is so big. It used to scare me, but not anymore. 

“Your son is just like you,” Mom tells Dad.

“I stop crying when I get to suck on your tits?” Dad says and Mom snorts.

“I was going to say he doesn’t like sleeping through the night.”

Dad crosses the room and sits down in the rocking chair. He reaches his hands forward and pulls Mom onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing his face into her neck. 

“Good view?” Mom asks and now Dad snorts.

“I’ll walk him,” Dad says. “When you’re done feeding him. Go back to bed.”

“I’m up,” Mom sighs. 

“You don’t have to do it all on your own. You shouldn’t do it all on your own.”

“I know,” Mom replies. She looks down at Bail again and her face does something I’ve never seen it do before. She brushes his hair out of his face. “We made a kid.”

“I noticed,” Dad rumbles. His face is still in Mom’s neck. 

“We have a family.”

His arms tighten around her and he looks down her chest at Bail. “Yeah,” he whispers. “We do.”

\---

I decide that Bail is useless.

He is small. He is optimally sized for causing chaos, for making Mom and Dad  _ pay _ for trying to replace me. Because if they are so willing to replace me, they might be willing to replace  _ him _ because  _ he _ is significantly more useless than me. I can show him. But he will not listen to my well-reasoned arguments about why he should side with me and not with them. 

And he pulls my feathers.

He stares at me and pulls my feathers and tries to tug my wings off my shoulders which  _ hurts _ and then I squawk and Mom comes over and she doesn’t even  _ yell _ at him. “No, Bail. Don’t pull Bird like that.” At least she told him he was wrong. At least she will defend me. But once she threw a dog out of the apartment because it kept trying to eat me, but she won’t throw Bail out of the apartment for trying to pull my wings off. 

She sings to him the way she used to sing to me. She walks him up and down the apartment just humming to him and telling him how brave he is, and smart he is, and how loved he is.

They keep petting me, but it feels cursory. And  _ only _ when I hop up onto their laps and squawk. Mom used to scoop me up and carry me around with her. She used to call for me to keep her company when she was working on one thing or another. But she doesn’t do that anymore. It’s like I don’t matter. Not anywhere near as much as Bail. 

He can’t even hold his head up. He’s just useless.  _ Useless _ .

I squawk plaintively as Mom and Dad carry him around the place. I miss being carried. I don’t  _ need _ to be carried. I can walk and fly, unlike useless, stupid Bail. But I still liked being able to see from a higher vantage without having to exert any effort. I liked being held as though  _ I _ were the baby. 

But I sense those days are past me, and Bail won’t even unionize with me for a more equal distribution of cuddles. It’s not  _ fair _ .

\---

Dad has never slept well. It’s something I noticed before they brought Bail home. He would always climb into bed with Mom, he would hold her until they fell asleep, or put his mouth on places all over her body until she was sort of writhing in a way that I think she liked (she yelled, but she always kissed him after so I wasn’t concerned that he was actually hurting her), but the moment she was snoring and asleep, he’d extricate himself most nights. He’d go out into the living room and read, or he’d watch some holos, or sometimes just sit in the dark. He always gave the best pets then. He liked the company, I think.  _ My _ company. And he was always very gentle.

Now though, he doesn’t go into the living room. He’ll go into Bail’s room and look down at him. He doesn’t sit in the rocking chair, or when he does, it’s to hold  _ Bail _ and not me. He rocks him back and forth, holding him to his bare chest, looking down at him. I try hopping on his lap once, and he sort of pats my head with his elbow but doesn’t even  _ try _ to care about both of us in equal measure. He doesn’t even look at me, he just looks down at Bail—who isn’t even  _ awake _ . And when I squawk—you know, to get the attention I deserve—Dad says, “Quiet. Don’t wake him.”

As if that dumb baby can’t sleep through  _ everything _ . I look up at Dad with my best porg eyes, but Dad just sort of ignores me. He just keeps rocking back and forth in the chair, his own very porglike eyes on Bail. 

I hop off his lap and run to Mom, who is asleep. I flap up onto the bed and burrow down next to her. It doesn’t count as ignoring me if she’s asleep.

\---

I become disconsolate and they don’t even notice.

They sleep at weird hours, because stupid Bail keeps waking them up at weird hours, so I don’t even get my good sleep cuddles in. 

I am let outside for only the shortest stints. It’s clear they’re only remembering that porgs are creatures of the sky because they’re worried I’ll poop in the fresher again. It’s not because they care about my happiness or my wellbeing. The Rolling One beeps at me periodically. It tries to pat my head but its prongs are not nearly as good at petting as human hands.

I grow tired and weary. I feel under-cared for, even though they are feeding me. My food doesn’t taste as good as it once did. My sleep isn’t as restful as it once was. It feels like the air doesn’t come as easily to my lungs.

And then, one day, Dad sits up straighter, his eyes on me, a frown at his lips. “Has Bird been molting more than usual lately?” he asks.

And that’s when everything changes.

\---

I’m more cheeping than squawking in protest as Mom puts me in one of  _ Bail’s _ carriers. But she straps me to her chest and hugs me close as she takes me out of the apartment. Bail is strapped to Dad’s chest and he is, per usual, asleep.

“How long do porgs live?” Mom asks quietly and fear fills me. I have been molting and it’s not my seasonal molt. I’ve been feeling a little listless, but I was assuming that I was succumbing to my own melodrama. But Mom and Dad are hovering over me. Dad’s hand is resting on my head before he takes the speeder off through the stars. 

“Probably not that long,” Dad replies which is not the answer I’d wanted to hear at all. “Birds don’t live very long, especially when they’re this small.”

I want to cry. Instead I cheep more and burrow my face in Mom’s chest.

“It’s ok, Bird,” Mom says and she tightens her arms around me like she always did before Bail came home with them. “It’s ok.”

\---

We sit and wait in a bright room. Dad spoke with a woman behind the counter, who made him fill out some forms. Mom keeps petting me. My feathers keep falling off. 

“How long a wait?” Mom asks when Dad comes back. 

“They said ten mintues, maybe,” he says. He takes her hand and squeezes it. “It’s gonna be ok.”

“What if he’s dying?” Mom’s voice is thick and wet. I peek up at her. She’s crying. 

“Then he’s had a really good life. We made sure of that,” Dad replies.  _ Thanks, Dad.  _ That’s not comforting at all. Except it also is. I look between the two of them, frightened. I don’t like being outside the apartment but inside other places. Especially since I suspect this is going to be the place where they always poke me and prod me and shine lights in my eyes and ears. 

I feel something grabbing at my feathers and look over at Dad. Bail is watching me, grabbing at my feathers.

“No, Bail,” Dad says, running his fingers over Bail’s stubby wing and getting him to let go of my feathers. “We pet Bird, we don’t tug at him. Like this.” And he guides Bail’s hand.

Bail, it turns out, isn’t useless.

Bail, it turns out, is good at petting.

\---

I was right: this is the place where they poke me and prod me and shine lights in my eyes. 

“Has he been eating properly?” asks the Stranger Who Pokes. 

“He sort of grazes,” Dad says. “He always has.”

“And drinking his water?”

“I think so,” Mom says. “We have a BB Unit that’s been taking primary care of his feeding since this nugget was born.” She points to Bail. Bail is watching the Stranger poke me. He keeps lifting his fat little arm to reach for me. I wish Bail were petting me instead of this poking stranger. 

“And you trust the BB unit?”

“Yes,” Mom says angrily. “BB-8’s very responsible.”

The Poker nods. “Well, seems to be a mild vitamin deficiency if I had to guess. Could do with some more sunshine and probably needs to make sure he’s finishing his meals. It’s probably stress. We get that a lot with pets who have a newborn in the house.”

Dad glances down at Bail, who is burbling and still reaching for me. 

“Pets can get tense about the noise, and the grabbing, and the change in attention from their owners.”

Mom and Dad look at one another. I suddenly don’t mind having been poked so much.

“So more sunshine and cuddling and making sure he’s eating and drinking?” Dad asks at last.

“Yep,” the Stranger says. “He’ll get used to having this little guy around in no time,” he adds smiling at Bail. Bail burps at him. 

\---

I feel very pampered after my past few weeks of neglect. Mom and Dad spend most of the next few days carrying me around at least as much as they carry Bail around. And what’s more is they keep putting me in the little nest  _ next _ to Bail, which I like a lot because Bail is good at petting now. He likes to hug me too. 

We lie there together, looking up at the star mobiles overhead and it’s positively peaceful, until Bail poops and starts to cry, or gets hungry and starts to cry, or just wants company and starts to cry. But he’s less annoying now because he pets me and burbles happily. 

Dad makes sure I eat all my food, and Mom sits out in the garden with me as I enjoy the sunshine. It’s not the same as it was before Bail, but it’s still nice. And I will say, I probably jumped to conclusion about Bail’s willingness to create chaos. I start to suspect he is crying for attention on purpose right as Mom and Dad are kissing each other all over their bodies. And he definitely poops to show his dominance.

Yes, I think he and I can come to understand one another. Especially if he keeps petting and hugging me, which he doesn’t seem inclined to stop doing. Especially since he seems to like having me cuddled next to him under the stars in his nest.


End file.
